The Project 306 team has been constantly working this semester to promote the mission and goals of the new initiative created just last Fall. The mission of Project 306 is: “to enable and foster the innovations of all Sweet Briar students by building a community that supports our students professionally and personally.”

The spring semester Project 306 team consisted of six students: Acacia Salazar, Catherine Freeman, Carter Garrett, Kim Orchowski, Adeline Krieger, and Caroline Baker, all working under the guidance of Professor Loftus.

Project 306 quickly started the spring semester with a few key goals established:

1. To create a large, more consistent media presence.

2. To integrate the mission, goals, and events of Project 306 into the daily lives of the Sweet Briar community.

3. To provide more professional resources, as well as optimize on current resources available to students.

4. To host more events.

Each team member took on their own media channel and managed all postings and interactions on the channel with the goal of creating a larger media presence in mind. The media channels focused on this semester were: Facebook, Twitter, the Project 306 Blog, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

The team accomplished many great things this semester, but here are just a few of those accomplishments:

The creation of a new media channel, the Project 306 Instagram page.

Gained over 100 Facebook ‘likes’ in the course of 3 months.

Increased Project 306’s overall media presence since last Fall by consistently updating all media channels with stories, events, pictures, quotes, etc. This presence continues to increase by the day.

The creation of a new Project 306 website which will include a professional directory of students’ resumes to facilitate connections/references with alumnae along with a link to Shop Sweet.

Held two great events – “Getting Busy: Women in Business” and a raffle.

“Getting Busy: Women in Business” involved the creation of a forum in which junior and senior business majors talked about their experiences at Sweet Briar within the Business Department with younger students. There were five students speakers who spoke about the positive effects business classes they have taken at Sweet Briar have had on different parts of their lives including finding jobs and getting internships.

The raffle was also a successful event that raised funds for future events in the Business Department while giving back to the students. Winners of the raffle received many great prizes including: Sweet Briar Bookshop items, an El Mariachi gift card, and parking passes.

What’s Next for Project 306?

Project 306 has already begun planning new events along with creating new goals for the Fall 2014 semester. One event, Networking Night, will allow students to build and expand upon relationships with alumnae through a night of mingling and connecting. This event will further help Sweet Briar students take advantage of the resources available in relation to alumnae connections and Career Services.

For more great stories from the Sweet Briar Business Department, be sure to follow Project 306 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and don’t forget to ‘like’ Project 306 on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SweetBriarBusiness

Management isn’t purely related to business and careers, it’s an ability that can be utilized in regard to any kinds of goals you have for yourself. Although business and career success are always favorite topics of Project 306, success as a student is also a goal that is of importance to us. An ability to manage time, assignments, exams, etc. is vital to academic success. As final exams are quickly approaching, you might be asking yourself, “how in the world am I going to keep up with all of these, often large, assignments at one time?”Project 306 has some tips to help you manage all of those final, end-of-the-year assignments that seem so overwhelming. Here are some of them:

Give Yourself Mental Breaks: If you feel as though you’re studying or writing has come to a halt, allow yourself to take breaks. Go outside and enjoy the spring weather for a couple minutes, grab a cup of tea, walk the dairy loop, go out to dinner with a friend, etc. Breaks along the way are often necessary to remain productive.

Keep Happy Thoughts in Mind: A great way to avoid procrastination and get to work on final assignments of courses is to remember that Summer is awaiting you once your done. By keeping happy thoughts in mind, it will be easier to encourage yourself to get those daunting assignments done and over with.

Find a Quiet Place to Work: It’s hard to get everything done with a million distractions around you. Find a quiet place that allows you to focus and to get your assignments done.

Always Clarify: If you’re having trouble figuring out what exactly is being tested or what a final paper should include, don’t be afraid to ask your professor for guidance. A lot of time can be wasted on details that are not pertinent to your assignment if you do not feel a sense of clarity of the assignment’s purpose.

Write Down Questions & Answers: For many people, information is not really retained until they actually write down a question and the answer to the question. Writing, rather than just looking at the information, greatly helps with recall and makes you focus on each piece of information alone.

Plan, Then Pace: All of the final assignments may seem rather overwhelming when you think about them all at one time. Write out a schedule of when you will work on each assignment, or take each exam, and then focus purely on that assignment. If you are thinking about all of the other assignments you have to do while you are completing another one, you will find it hard to concentrate and do your best work on the assignment at hand. If you create a schedule of when you will do each assignment beforehand, you will be able to focus on one assignment at a time.

For more great stories from the Sweet Briar Business Department, be sure to follow Project 306 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and don’t forget to ‘like’ Project 306 on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SweetBriarBusiness

Get excited! This week is the launching of a company that was founded by our own Sweet Briar students! The four founders of the company: Catherine Freeman, Caroline McMillian, Murphy Owen, and Olivia Hurt are all Business majors in the Senior Seminar class taught by Dr. Scott this Spring. They are seeking to solve a major problem the Sweet Briar College campus faces: the lack of a local delivery service. They decided to form their own business called GroceWe, which directly stands for “We grocery shop for you.” GroceWe’s purpose is to provide convenience to the students, faculty, and staff on the Sweet Briar campus, especially focusing on those who do not have the time, a car on campus, etc.

The founders also say a large part of their purpose is to promote healthy eating by frequently providing simple recipes anyone could make. The four students will be bringing their Senior Seminar project to life as they will be delivering their very first round of grocery orders this Monday, April 21st at Noon. All orders must be placed by 5 PM on Sundays via GroceWe’s website: www.GroceWe.weebly.com.

In today’s challenging job market, this type of self-branding will set you apart, especially in creative fields like marketing, advertising and social media.

When I worked at Discovery Networks in the early 2000s, I had a colleague who sent a chocolate cast of an arm to the Affiliate Marketing Division. She attached her resume and a creatively designed note that read “I’d give my right arm to work for Discovery Networks!”

Likewise, when I was applying for a promotion, I filmed myself pitching various networks in creative locations – a Mexican restaurant for Discovery in Español, in front of the British Museum for BBC America, and at the National Zoo for Animal Planet. Then I packaged the clips in a creatively designed DVD case that I gave the VP of our division. I got the promotion!

Again, today’s market is extremely competitive, so think about creative ways to brand yourself and you will land the job or internship! And, while I am on internships, I would like to find an intern for this summer. If you are interested in building your resume with actual marketing and social media work and earn three credits, email me at cmosley@sbc.edu!

For more great stories from the Sweet Briar Business Department, be sure to follow Project 306 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and don’t forget to ‘like’ Project 306 on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SweetBriarBusiness

In honor of March being National Women’s History Month, here are five of our favorite business women from the Forbes Business list:

1. Sheryl Sandberg:In her book Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg detailed her intense negotiations with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as she was being courted for the company’s chief operating officer position. “I could play hardball,” she wrote with regards to the offer. More than half a decade after accepting the COO gig, Sandberg is likely thankful she stuck to her guns during negotiations. She is now one of the world’s youngest self-made women billionaires. A former Google executive, she was wooed to Facebook by Zuckerberg in 2007 to provide a sense of order to the fledgling startup run by college dropouts. She’s since become a foil for Zuckerberg, pushing the company toward strong earnings performances with improvements in mobile strategy. In addition to her role at Facebook, Sandberg also sits on the board at the Walt Disney Co.

2. Janet Yellen: Yellen will be the first woman to head the mighty US Federal Reserve if she takes over at the central bank in January. Her job will be to maintain the stuttering recovery of the world’s largest economy. Yellen is an expert on the causes and impact of unemployment and is regarded as an “economic dove” who will stick with current chairman Ben Bernanke’s massive support program for the economy. Yellen first joined the Fed in 1977 but left in 1978 to lecture at the London School of Economics with her Nobel-winning economist husband George Akerlof. She has straddled academia and public office since and advised Bill Clinton for two years of his presidency. Her appointment as the Fed’s vice chairwoman in 2010 set her up to succeed Bernanke.

3. Indra Nooyi: Nooyi is Chair and Chief Executive of PepsiCo. Nooyi has proved herself a tough operator leading PepsiCo – the world’s second biggest food and drinks business – for the last seven years. Two years ago there was pressure for her to stand down but she held on and increased sales. In July, she turned down another executive who was applying pressure for Pepsi to split its drinks business off from the more successful snacks arm. Nooyi, 57, was born and educated in India. After various strategy and consulting jobs, and postgraduate study at Yale, she joined Pepsi in 1994, aged 29. By 2001 she was chief financial officer, running the group’s strategy and overseeing purchases of Tropicana and Quaker Oats Co on her way to the top job.

4. Melinda Gates: As co-chair of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Melinda Gates and her husband Bill hold the purse strings to an endowment of 38.3 billion. The foundation is best known for its work fighting diseases, including malaria and polio, and for speaking out on sensitive subjects, such as birth control. Having studied for a BA and an MBA at Duke University, Gates joined Microsoft as a product developer in 1987. She met Bill the same year, married him in 1994 and left the company in 1996 to raise the couple’s three children, before becoming increasingly involved with philanthropy. Gates herself is widely regarded as a thoughtful campaigner who works methodically to drive change without seeking the limelight.

5. Tory Burch: In an impressively short time, Tory Burch has created a multimillion-dollar lifestyle brand based on simply herself. Raised in a historic Georgian house on rolling acres in Pennsylvania, she was a tomboyish kid more likely to be found up a tree than in a dress. Burch studied art history and then honed her public relations chops with jobs at Ralph Lauren, Vera Wang, and Narcisco Rodriguez. As a designer, her approach is informed by her foundation in marketing, rather than fashion school. Burch set her sights on an overlooked market: aspirational mid-career women and Bergdorf moms seeking affordable quality with the timelessness of good taste. With this solid business plan in hand, Burch tapped in and struck gold. Women clamored for the versatile tunics, modeled by Burch after a Paris flea-market find, in the bright palette and prints that have become her signature.

For more great stories from the Sweet Briar Business Department, be sure to follow Project 306 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and don’t forget to ‘like’ Project 306 on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SweetBriarBusiness

Did you miss Project 306‘s latest event? Not to worry! Here is a recap of a couple of the great presentations we heard!

Project 306 held an event, Getting Busy: Women Doing Business, on February 25th in the Pannell Art Gallery. At this event, students heard some of our very own Sweet Briar students talk about their personal experiences involving internships, business classes, or even their very own start-up business! Our key speakers were: Olivia Smith, Caroline McMillian, Brittany Griffith, Anna Callicoat, and Sarah Hibler.

The first speaker to talk was Olivia Smith, a senior Business minor. Olivia spoke about her internship in New York with the CBS Corporation. She says she was given this opportunity through a lot of networking and letting people know about her interests, one of which was finance. Olivia says she was compelled to pursue finance after taking an interest in both the Accounting and Finance classes at Sweet Briar. As she was the youngest person in her office and the only intern at CBS, she was expected to do everything full-time employees do daily. Olivia says this created a very valuable learning experience for her. By the internship’s end, she was offered another opportunity to come back and work for CBS.

Another speaker was Anna Callicoat, a junior Business major. Anna began her presentation speaking about her experiences within the well-known Business Seminar class, a class in which students separate into teams and create as well as put on their own event for the Sweet Briar community and beyond. Through being a first-time student of the Business Seminar class, Anna says she gained a lot of self confidence and was compelled to apply for many internships. The Hilton Garden Inn offered her an opportunity to intern. Anna accepted the offer, and worked as a management intern this past Summer. During this internship, she realized how much she loved management. She says she was amazed at how well her boss handled any issues with customers, assisted the staff, and overall, kept the hotel on its feet. Anna carried this inspiration over into business major at Sweet Briar and soon became the CEO for the Business Seminar class this semester in which she is in charge of managing teams of people in the very same way her boss at the Hilton Garden Inn did.

These are just a few of the great presentations we heard on February 25th. A big thank you to all of our fabulous speakers! Please keep a lookout for the announcement of our next Project 306 event!

For more great stories from the Sweet Briar Business Department, be sure to follow Project 306 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and don’t forget to ‘like’ Project 306 on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SweetBriarBusiness

In my conversations with students about their career aspirations – and I’ve had a lot of those, over the years! – I often hear them taking one of two approaches to career planning.

The first is goal-driven. These students decide where they want to end up and are determined to do whatever it takes to get there. (“I want to be a vet, so even though labs aren’t my favorite thing I’ll take all the required courses and then some.”) The second is more intrinsically-motivated. These students do what they love and trust that a rewarding career will emerge from their choices. (“Nothing could be more fun than mastering four different languages, and there are lots of interesting things multilingual people can do.”)

I am and always have been one of the second kind. I see an opportunity to do something interesting and rewarding, something that wakes me up intellectually and challenges me personally, and it’s what I want to do! I never worried too much about where my professional choices would lead me; I always trusted that they would take me someplace fascinating and useful.

That’s a long way of saying I never set the explicit goal of becoming a college president. I just followed my interests and enthusiasms down a path that led me here. Naturally, it wasn’t the conventional, linear path – my experiences in consortial organizations, technology initiatives, and not-for-profit entrepreneurship are unusual ones for a college president to have had – but I had great experiences at every stage and wouldn’t trade what I learned along the way for anything.

To a person who takes a more goal-driven approach, this follow-your-bliss message can seem reckless and impractical, I know. And in fact, the two approaches aren’t really incompatible: it’s certainly possible to think both about what you love and feel passionate about and about where you hope to end up in your career. But I always want students to know that if they leave the love and passion out of the equation altogether they’ll be missing out on what makes work – and life – most satisfying.

Not every aspect of my work as a college president is delightful. There are difficult decisions to be made, hard choices to be faced, painful conflicts to be resolved. If I didn’t love it, believe in it, and find it so thoroughly engaging, I suspect I’d burn out pretty quickly. But doing what you love is a lot easier to sustain over the long haul than doing what you “have” to do.

If I could wish Sweet Briar undergraduates one thing, in terms of their careers, it is this: may they find the work that feeds their minds and hearts!

For more great stories from the Sweet Briar Business Department, be sure to follow Project 306 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and don’t forget to ‘like’ Project 306 on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/SweetBriarBusiness

My trip to Tanzania, Africa in January, 2014 was intriguing in many ways. In this blog I’d like to describe Madaktari Africa’s mission, explain the role I play in that organization, and describe some potential international opportunities for students.

Madaktari Africa’s (non-profit) mission has been to improve the level of health care in African countries through a unique training process of medical “residents” very early in their medical maturation process. “Watch one, do one, teach one” is the philosophy for training these residents. After 7 years, the level of health care in cities like Dar es Salaam and Haydom has improved as a result of these sustainable medical practice efforts. This differs from most other outreach efforts where teaching is not as hands-on. The objective is to raise the level of health care in Tanzania to a point where people no longer need to be flown to India, the UK or the US for medical procedures on a regular basis.

Madaktari Africa, in January, asked me to become their Director of Business Development in order to extend the philosophy of self-sustaining practices to business. While the position requires me to be available to government officials for consulting, it is primarily designed to promote the development of sustainable businesses that improve the quality of life, while maintaining respect for the native culture. The initial projects, to be set up in Tanzania, are:

Mini biofuel machine production in Haydom, TZ;

Expansion of a Safari business in Haydom/Arusha (2014) through niche development;

3D Printing of Medical Devices in Dar es Salaam (2015); and possibly

The development of medical devices that can be produced in Tanzania (this depends on how involved SBC engineering can become in this area).

While this position certainly contributes to my research in the area of starting and developing sustainable businesses, this also provides excellent international opportunities for our students (business, engineering, and other). The next three blogs will detail the first three projects listed above. I hope to hear from students that would like to become involved in these – or other – opportunities in sub-Sahara Africa.

We love great sources of inspiration and TED talks are one of our favorites. Here are five to which we constantly look back:

Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders, Sheryl Sandberg – Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions — and offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite.

The Art of Choosing, Sheena Iyengar – Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices — and how we feel about the choices we make. At TEDGlobal, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions.

How Schools Kill Creativity, Ken Robinson – Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity. Creativity expert Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence

The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown – Brené Brown studies human connection — our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.

The Power of Introverts, Susan Cain – In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated. (Sheena Iyengar: “The Art of Choosing”)

We’ve all heard about “climbing the corporate ladder.” The idea is that our careers will have an upward progression marked with clear steps. Well, as organizations get flatter and as people stay in the workforce longer (standing on the rungs above you), the ladders may not be leading you where you want to go.

So instead, think about your career as a subway map:

Multiple ways to get from Point A to Point B (lateral and upward moves)

Sights to see along the way (jobs/workplaces to experience)

You meet lots of people along the way (networking)

My first job after college was in the Metro Boston area, so I became really familiar with “the T” – Boston’s subway system. Let’s use that as a visual.

I started near the beginning of the Red Line (let’s say Davis Square) with an entry level job in my field at a high-tech company. I stayed on that route for a couple of years. Along the way: new duties, some on-the-job training and then a promotion at my same company.

Then, I jumped onto the Green Line by changing who I worked for; I stayed in my same field but now in financial services. Why did I change trains? I had been working long work days (9am to 9pm most days) and wanted more work-life balance. I also felt I was ready for new challenges sooner than my next promotion was likely to happen. A friend of a friend shared the job opportunity, so who you meet along your professional travels is absolutely relevant.

Just like the Green Line has multiple tracks, I had multiple jobs at this next company: promotions, lateral job changes, different career path altogether for a time. On each ride and at each stop, I learned new skills, met new people (networked) and made myself more marketable. Some stops and tracks involved additional pay; some were at the same pay rate. Money was not always driving the train; gathering experiences and having rewarding work opportunities were often more valuable to me.

Then I figured out a bit more about where I wanted to go and how I wanted to contribute to society through work, and I jumped on the Orange Line; I was ready to have my work have more meaning, so I shifted from financial services to a non-profit providing services for individuals with disabilities; large company to small organization; specialized role in HR to Jane-of-all-things HR. To make this train change, I reached out to a variety of people I had met along the way – including people from my Red Line and Green Line travels – to explore different paths.

While on the Orange Line, I practiced what I already knew, learned through formal and informal training, and met more people. I also explored a different professional area by taking workshops and seminars along the way. Using all that I learned while on the Orange Line, I looked for an opportunity to jump onto the Blue Line – it seemed to me that doing what I was good at for a different non-profit was going to be a better fit for me. And so my travels brought me to Sweet Briar.

You get the idea: instead of one way to climb the ladder to get from entry level job to upper management, we are more likely to try different jobs, learn skills at different employers and in different roles, and change careers altogether, expanding our professional network along the way.

Instead of thinking of your work experiences as rungs on a ladder, think of them as stops on the incredible journey that is your work life, with your education as your ticket.